Good morning on Thursday, November 9, 2023, and National Greek Yogurt Day (cultural appropriation).
Today’s news will be short as I did a food post (later) and also slept late.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the November 9 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Anthony Blinken is apparently running Israel, or so the NYT reports, for his suggestions are limned as future Israelis policy. The latest is to turn over Gaza, after it is free from Hamas, to the Palestinian Authority.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Wednesday that Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority once the war is over, offering a strong signal about what the United States sees as its preferred endgame in the fight between Israel and Hamas.
The message, delivered during a meeting of foreign ministers in Tokyo, came as President Biden feels growing pressure to use his leverage to push for sustainable, long-term goals in the region and minimize civilian casualties. But increasingly, the United States and Israel are showing signs that their interests are diverging.
The remarks by Mr. Blinken on Wednesday reflect a deep anxiety on the part of Mr. Biden and his aides inside the White House as the conflict enters its second month. What started in the days after Oct. 7 as an unambiguous rush to the defense of an ally has become a much more complicated diplomatic challenge for the president to help define an alternative to open-ended war in the Middle East.
. . .On Wednesday, Mr. Blinken said there must be “affirmative elements to get to a sustained peace.”
“These must include the Palestinian people’s voices and aspirations at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza,” he said. “It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
Mr. Blinken offered no details about how such an arrangement might be implemented;
Frankly, this suggestion is insane. Mahmoud Abbas, the aging head of the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, fosters terrorism, and the people of Gaza despise him, No wonder no details were offered. If there is to be an honest broker for peace to negotiate for that impossible two-state solution, that broker isn’t Abbas. Also, Israel also has its own idea: to “hold a security role over Gaza for an indefinite period,” a suggestion that is also insane. So far there seems to be no feasible endgame in Gaza, and Biden, desperate to avoid accusations of being complicit in the death of civilians in Gaza, is throwing Hail Marys.
*The Republicans are still having debates about who won’t be the Presidential candidate in a year. The WaPo reports a heated moment perhaps reflecting the candidates’ frustration at engaging in such a futile exercise.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley told entrepreneur and fellow Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to keep her daughter “out of your voice” during a contentious moment on the debate stage in Miami on Wednesday night.
. . .[Vivek] Ramaswamy was asked how he could ban TikTok — the popular Chinese-owned social media app that has drawn scrutiny across the U.S. government — if he is an active user himself.
Before explaining that the social media platform is important to reach younger generations of Americans, Ramaswamy said he wanted to “laugh at why Nikki Haley didn’t answer your question, which is about looking at families in the eye.”
“In the last debate she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time,” he said. “So you might want to take care of your family first.”
As the crowd loudly booed Ramaswamy, a visibly angry Haley told Ramaswamy to leave her daughter, who is 25, out of it.
“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” she said. “You’re just scum.”
The video, just for fun: (clearly the audience didn’t like bringing family into the debate). The “scum” remark comes at 33 seconds in, and a bit later she loudly unloads on Ramaswamy.
None of these people stand a chance to be President, though, according to the Wall Street Journal, Haley is leading the pack (behind Trump, of course, who didn’t bother to show up).
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has shown momentum in recent weeks, came under sustained attack in Wednesday’s Republican presidential primary debate as she competes with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to be the leading alternative to former President Donald Trump.
She also delivered several of her own shots at DeSantis, who tried to float above the fray, but engaged with her on China, energy policy and a handful of other issues. A confrontation between the two had been brewing, amplified by a closely watched poll that recently showed Haley and DeSantis tied for second in Iowa, where nomination balloting starts Jan. 15.
But second place may not be worth much given Trump’s commanding lead in the polls. After an opening question that asked candidates to make a case against Trump, who skipped the event, the debate centered on testy exchanges between those on stage.
. . .She took heat over her foreign-policy positions, attempts to spur Chinese investment in her home state and earnings from Boeing and other corporate boardships.
In relation to China, Haley threw a punch at DeSantis as she called for an end to all formal trade relations “until they stop murdering Americans from fentanyl, something Ron has yet to say that he’s going to do.”
Such is the tenor of American politics. Does any other country have debates like this, and are they unelightening shows of rancor, as ours are?
*Finally, activists in Michigan are trying to keep Donald Trump off the ballot because he engaged in insurrection,
A judge in Michigan is expected to hear arguments Thursday on whether Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has the authority to keep Donald Trump’s name off state ballots for president.
Activists are suing Benson in the Michigan Court of Claims to force her to keep Trump’s name off ballots and to assess Trump’s constitutional qualifications to serve a second term as president.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the former president are demanding that Trump’s name be allowed on the 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot.
. . .Activists — in two separate suits — point to a section of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment that prohibits a person from running for federal office if they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the U.S. or given aid or comfort to those who have.
Liberal groups also have filed lawsuits in Colorado and Minnesota to bar Trump from the ballot, portraying him as the inciter of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was intended to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win.
The groups cite a rarely used constitutional prohibition against holding office for those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection” against it. The two-sentence clause in the 14th Amendment has been used only a handful of times since the years after the Civil War.
It won’t work unless Trump is convicted of inciting insurrection (he’s been indicted). Then, if he’s off the ballot in states like Michigan, he can’t win. However, if they leave him on the ballot and he wins the election, he could pardon himself if he’s convicted, as he’s accused of federal crimes. Now that would be a circus, since we don’t know if a President can pardon himself
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili sees despair in Andrzej’s eyes:
Hili: You were reading a newspaper again.A: How do you know?Hili: I can see it just by looking at you.
Hili: Znowu czytałeś gazetę.Ja: Skąd wiesz?Hili: To zawsze po tobie widać.
A meme from Annie:
This photo was from from Facebook. Read the caption.
From the Absurd Sign Project 2.0:
Masih is apparently a member of a new body called the American Liberty Congress, an organization designed to do what the UN is supposed to do but doesn’t.
Global dissidents hold First General Assembly
More than 200 dissidents from 56 countries under autocratic rule gathered in Vilnius during the first General Assembly of the World Liberty Congress, an organization dedicated to promoting #democracy and #humanrights. The gathering… pic.twitter.com/Af0vD4E0cL
— WORLD LIBERTY CONGRESS (@WLCongress) November 6, 2023
From Malcolm; cats being cats:
Just cat's in action pic.twitter.com/3YDXdoE4RB
— Cute vs Goblin (@cute_vs_goblin) October 21, 2023
From Barry. This Eurasian eagle owl, named Flaco, escaped from a NYC zoo and has eluded capture. It’s amazing that it can survive, but winter is coming on. It was in Central Park but has now moved:
Flaco the Eurasian Eagle-Owl has begun a new chapter of his life after having left Central Park, looking out early this evening at new surroundings in Kenkeleba House Garden on East 2nd Street in the East Village. 🦉 ♥️ pic.twitter.com/bCUq9i6bGb
— Manhattan Bird Alert (@BirdCentralPark) November 6, 2023
From Jez; an Israeli spokesman tangles with a Sky News reporter:
Israeli Government Spokesman Eylon Levy calls on the international community to help with civilian evacuations instead of 'criticising Israel's efforts to keep Gazan civilians safe from the consequences of their own leaders reckless actions'https://t.co/HHQeURVSsz
📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/E2hahPqvk5
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 8, 2023
From Simon, who says “Gotta love Raskin”:
Today I learned Jamie Raskin is not only a member of Congress and constitutional law scholar, but also a grammarian, as evidenced by his markup of a “Dear Colleague” from George Santos. Ouch. pic.twitter.com/vB7Rp3caL0
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) November 3, 2023
From the Auschwitz Memorial; an 11 year old girl gassed upon arrival:
9 November 1930 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Betsij Kaatje van Geldere, was born in Tilburg.
In October 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. pic.twitter.com/ToqpJEOb94
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 9, 2023
Tweets from Matthew. First–MILLIPEDE DRESSAGE!
Millipede dressage.
Look for the sideways half pass,
and the ‘coil’.
One Tree Hill,
Dandenong Ranges.
SE. Australia. pic.twitter.com/vtrJR3OaVL— Nick Porch (@InvertoPhiles) October 15, 2022
A WHITE CAT after exploring the chimney (from Instagram):
Greek Yogurt Day (cultural appropriation): pun intended?
Well spo, Jim ! :o)
No; I keep making good puns unintentionally!
I think Jamie Raskin missed a bit
I think “alleged” is redundant.
Raskin also overlooked a split infinitive, so I’d say he was being quite charitable to the pitiable George Santos.
On this day:
694 – At the Seventeenth Council of Toledo, Egica, a king of the Visigoths of Hispania, accuses Jews of aiding Muslims, sentencing all Jews to slavery.
1494 – The Medici family is expelled from Florence.
1520 – More than 50 people are sentenced and executed in the Stockholm Bloodbath.
1720 – The synagogue of Judah HeHasid is burned down by Arab creditors, leading to the expulsion of the Ashkenazim from Jerusalem.
1851 – Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.
1872 – The Great Boston Fire of 1872.
1887 – The United States receives rights to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
1900 – Russia completes its occupation of Manchuria with 100,000 troops.
1906 – Theodore Roosevelt is the first sitting President of the United States to make an official trip outside the country, doing so to inspect progress on the Panama Canal.
1913 – The Great Lakes Storm of 1913, the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, reaches its greatest intensity after beginning two days earlier. The storm destroys 19 ships and kills more than 250 people.
1917 – The Balfour Declaration is published in The Times newspaper.
1918 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates after the German Revolution, and Germany is proclaimed a Republic.
1923 – In Munich, police and government troops crush the Nazi Beer Hall Putsch.
1938 – Kristallnacht occurs, instigated by the Nazis using the killing of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan as justification.
1965 – Several U.S. states and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast blackout of 1965.
1965 – A Catholic Worker Movement member, Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.
1967 – Apollo program: NASA launches the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft, atop the first Saturn V rocket, from Florida’s Cape Kennedy.
1970 – Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States votes 6–3 against hearing a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.
1979 – Cold War: Nuclear false alarm: The NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early-warning radars, the alert is cancelled.
1985 – Garry Kasparov, 22, of the Soviet Union, becomes the youngest World Chess Champion by beating fellow Soviet Anatoly Karpov.
1989 – Cold War: Fall of the Berlin Wall: East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel to West Berlin.
1993 – Stari Most, the “old bridge” in the Bosnian city of Mostar, built in 1566, collapses after several days of bombing by Croat forces during the Croat–Bosniak War.
1994 – The chemical element darmstadtium is discovered. [My knowledge of the periodic table is woefully out of date.]
1998 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, already abolished for murder, is completely abolished for all remaining capital offences. Kingdom, already abolished for murder, is completely abolished for all remaining capital offences.
Births:
1732 – Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse, French businesswoman and author (d. 1776).
1801 – Gail Borden, American surveyor and publisher, invented condensed milk (d. 1874).
1854 – Maud Howe Elliott, American activist and author (d. 1948).
1869 – Marie Dressler, Canadian-American actress and singer (d. 1934).
1871 – Florence R. Sabin, American medical scientist (d. 1953).
1880 – Giles Gilbert Scott, English architect, designed the red telephone box (d. 1960).
1914 – Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-American actress and inventor (d. 2000).
1916 – Martha Settle Putney, American lieutenant, historian, and educator (d. 2008).
1922 – Imre Lakatos, Hungarian mathematician, philosopher, and academic (d. 1974).
1934 – Ronald Harwood, South African author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 2020). [Won an Academy Award for the script of The Pianist and was nominated twice; for The Dresser (1983) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). Dad worked with him and the playwright Alun Owen in the 1959 stage debut of Owen’s The Rough and Ready Lot; their performances were later broadcast live by the BBC, first on radio and then on TV. Alun Owen met the Beatles to write the screenplay for A Hard Day’s Night a couple of years later.]
1934 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist (d. 1996).
1936 – Mary Travers, American singer-songwriter (d. 2009).
1937 – Roger McGough, English author, poet, and playwright.
1937 – Donald Trelford, English journalist and academic. [Editor of The Observer from 1975 to 1993.]
1951 – Lou Ferrigno, American bodybuilder and actor. [Played the original Hulk, which I hadn’t realised before was very appropriate. Aged three he was diagnosed with 75% to 80% hearing loss. This and his speech impediment caused Ferrigno to be bullied by peers during his childhood who called him “deaf” and “mute”. He began reading comic books such as Hulk and Spider-Man at this time, later saying “I was obsessed with power”, and “I wanted to be strong enough so that I could be able to defend myself”.]Best
1965 – Bryn Terfel, Welsh opera singer.
1979 – Caroline Flack, English television presenter, radio presenter, and model (d. 2020).
And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm:
1778 – Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian sculptor and illustrator (b. 1720).
1854 – Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, wife/widow of Alexander Hamilton and co-founder of the first private orphanage in New York (b. 1757).
1906 – Dorothea Beale, English suffragist, educational reformer and author (b. 1831).
1918 – Guillaume Apollinaire, Italian-French author, poet, and playwright (b. 1880).
1937 – Ramsay MacDonald, Scottish journalist and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1866).
1940 – Neville Chamberlain, English businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1869).
1952 – Chaim Weizmann, Belarusian-Israeli chemist, academic, and politician, 1st President of Israel (b. 1874).
1953 – Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and author (b. 1914).
1970 – Charles de Gaulle, French general and politician, 18th President of France (b. 1890).
1991 – Yves Montand, Italian-French actor (b. 1921).
1997 – Carl Gustav Hempel, German philosopher from the Vienna and the Berlin Circle (b. 1905).
2003 – Art Carney, American actor and comedian (b. 1918).
2004 – Stieg Larsson, Swedish journalist and author (b. 1954).
2008 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer and activist (b. 1932).
The Lower East Side has traditionally been where generation after generation after generation of Eurasian immigrants have staked a claim to a new chapter of life in the US of A.
Good luck, Flaco.
A shout-out to my friends and colleagues at the Gail Borden Public Library District in Elgin, Illinois. Here’s the story of how the library became named after him.
https://www.gailborden.info/about-the-library/history-of-the-library/143-about-gail-borden
Meant to be a comment on Jez’s anniversaries of the day.
“It won’t work unless Trump is convicted of inciting insurrection (he’s been indicted)”
From what I have heard, conviction in a trial is not needed as it is not specified by the Constitution. And he certainly gave aid to the insurrectionists, as he sat on his hands for hours without calling in police or troops, while they were committing the crime of insurrection.
Pretty sure all it takes is some state officials with some spine and respect for the Constitution to remove him from the ballot.
The former president has not been indicted on any charge under the Insurrection Act. He won’t therefore be convicted of insurrection. So he’s home free on that score.
Gingerbaker is correct that it is up to state electoral commissions to rule on whether a person is constitutionally eligible to run in their elections. However, as for any administrative decision by the bureaucracy, such a ruling can be challenged in the Courts. The other constitutional restrictions on running for president are a matter of factual box-ticking: age, birth citizenship, duration of residence in the country. There is no requirement for good character, or to be of sound mind or body. Insurrection is not a matter of simple fact and a ruling on that alleged fact would be appealable on grounds of administrative fairness.
CNN reports that the Minnesota State Supreme Court has at least temporarily derailed the bid there to have Mr. Trump stricken from the ballot, on the technicality that he has not been nominated as the GOP candidate yet. The Court did invite Mr. Trump’s political enemies to re-petition if he wins the nomination and would be then in a position to have his name removed from the November ballot.
Any case that succeeds at the state level surely will be appealed to the Supreme Court, where Mr. Trump will prevail. It seems unimaginable to me that the front-running opposition candidate can be kicked off the ballot by some state election bureaucrat’s opinion about what happened on 6 Jan. Especially since these efforts will be made most profitably in battleground states that will determine the outcome of the election.
The Fourteenth Amendment was part of the general amnesty — “binding up the nation’s wounds” — shown by President Lincoln and his successors toward the leaders of the Confederacy. None was put on trial for treason or violations of the Insurrection Act. But the country did still want to make sure that Jefferson Davis could never become President. Otherwise, the American people ought to be able to elect as President whomever they damn well want. Oughtn’t they?
“Any case that succeeds at the state level surely will be appealed to the Supreme Court, where Mr. Trump will prevail. It seems unimaginable to me that the front-running opposition candidate can be kicked off the ballot by some state election bureaucrat’s opinion about what happened on 6 Jan.”
I wouldn’t be so sure Trump would prevail. More than one conservative legal expert, including the conservative J. Michael Luttig, a former judge of the US Court of Appeals, and the liberal Lawrence Tribe have written publicly that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is clear as day, applies, and doesn’t require any conviction as it involves a crime against the Constitution, not against the government.
Federalist Society judges William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen have written a paper to be published in the UPenn Law Review that the clause is “self-executing” and “operates as an immediate disqualification without the need for additional action by Congress. It can and should be enforced by every official, state or federal, who judges qualifications.”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4532751
The Supreme Court need to demonstrate its ethics. This might be the case that provides their redemption.
It is my sincere hope, based on pragmatic reasons concerning keeping this Union of ours bound together as one, that Donald Trump will be defeated at the ballot box, rather than be prevented from running in the general election on grounds arising under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But it is a serious, unresolved question of US constitutional law whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars someone who has engaged in behavior such as Trump’s is thereby disqualified from holding office — an issue of first impression, in that no one who has engaged in behavior such as Trump’s has ever before sought such office.
I don’t think he’s actually been charged with making an insurrection.
You are correct. He has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., witness tampering, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.
This situation with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment will be hashed out in court. Numerous constitutional experts say the clause is self executing. If this can be determined, Trump can be excluded from the ballot for inciting the insurrection and giving aid and comfort to insurrectionists. He’s promised to pardon those who have been convicted of insurrection and promotes the myth that they’re political prisoners. He helps fundraise for those who have been convicted of insurrection also. IMO, that qualifies as giving aid and comfort to insurrectionists.
I don’t understand the blind spot of some (well, most unfortunately) in the establishment media regarding Hamas’ responsibility over its own people and its role in their terrible plight.
Actually, I do. It’s based on soft racism. Hamas and the other Palestinians are the “brown people” who have no agency, and therefore no responsibility. Israel are the “white people”, and white people have a monopoly on agency and moral responsibility.
The arithmetic is therefore any suffering in the world must be due in some way to white people. Violence perpetrated by brown people can only be a righteous response to this, or at the very least can be excused as being driven to madness by the bad white people. That’s why it’s Israel’s fault that Hamas came in and deliberately shot up a group of innocent music lovers, burned children alive…etc.
That’s also why Israel is being told not to defend itself, or is being held to incredibly high standards of military engagement.
It sounds utterly ridiculous that people could believe something so simplistic, but that appears to be the mental software that many in the establishment media are running on…
Yes, exactly. This is why the media don’t care about Muslims killing Muslims in, say, Syria or Yemen or other places, they only care if they’re killed by Israelis. Similarly, in the US, the media takes no interest in black-on-black crime, even though that costs the lives of thousands of black people a year, and yet if one black person dies while resisting arrest by a white cop then it’s worthy of riots.
Some parts of the media – the dirtbag left/Tankie left such as GrayZone – parroted Russian-generated atrocity denial, blaming Assad’s chemical weapon attacks on “rescue workers”. So, not only don’t they care, they will use happily rewrite the facts of the deaths of 200,000 – 500,000 Muslims in Syria, to push their own narrative.
They’re currently at it again, parroting antisemitic blood libels about how the IDF, and not Hamas, killed everyone on 10/7.
Seriously? So far left and far right meet on the pole of holocaust denial…
That is a good observation. I guess the corollary of “black people can’t be racist” is part and parcel of this mindset.
I notice that Vivek parroted the Russian propaganda about “Christians being banned in Ukraine”. He parrots a LOT of fascist Russian propaganda and lies. Just like Trump did.
Hili is looking a bit thin in the face in today’s photo.
I am happy that Blinken and Biden have not yet come up with the suggestion that Gaza be administered by an Iran/Qatar coalition.